The more I have reconnected with myself and held my own personal retrospective on my life thus far, the more I have begun to see trends, events and cycles that I have previously lacked enough perspective to objectively view. This is I suppose the greatest advantage of getting older. As I have begun to "see" my life as it has unfolded, actively being aware of chains of events linking specific events together to form a trend. These trends often become habits and before you know it, you are stuck in a rut of your own making.
Strange as it may seem, I have found and faced my worst fear, which seems to have been partially self-created too. Its name is "Rejection". A nasty little critter that causes all kinds of havoc. Rejection has siblings too, "Abandonment", disappointment" and "Loneliness". Seeing a cycle, events reoccurring, was my trigger. Fortunately it now has a name, a label, a description which will enable it to be dealt with, catalogued, filed, archived and shredded. A lengthy process, or not? Time is after all relative.
Relatives, family, bloodlines. Relatives I have plenty of. My Mom assisted in compiling a family lineage on her mother’s side dating back to 1652! My family is also very dear to me. After all, who I am today has a lot to do with their influences. Bloodlines, that is another matter. I am adopted and was raised by the two most amazing people on this planet. A 10 day old baby boy was handed over to the very proud recipients of a brand new bundle of joy. Something they had been hoping and praying for for many years. I have always known that I am adopted and my parents made me feel very comfortable with the fact that I could ask them at any stage should I want to trace my biological parents.
I never wanted to know, mainly because I knew how hard it must have been for them to give me up for adoption. As I have discovered over the course of the past year, this was very far down the list of reasons. It was more a concern than a reason. The main reason was the nasty fear. Since joining "Fear Factor - Spitzkoppe Edition with guest star Priscilla Spitz (Chantelle Meyburgh)", around my 36th birthday last year, Fear has had nowhere to hide. The greatest revelation was that Fear, exists only in your head. I realised then that I no longer had anything to be afraid of, or had I? What Miss Spitz enabled me to see, through a process so very aptly labelled "The Process", was that FEAR was actually not really even a word, it is an acronym for "False Experiences Appearing Real".
How does a false experience even enter the picture? How can you have experienced something if it was false? That's just it, YOU DIDN'T. The experience exists only in your head. What I discovered was that I had created these FEARs. There were events in my life that I had no facts about, so I "filled in the gaps". Being "born of sin", one tends to develop a small self-persecution complex, evident in most people. Very evident in me I can tell you. Self-persecution resulted in all kinds of nasty fears attaching themselves like little gremlins, free loading on an unsuspecting host, parasites.
"The Process", is like enlisting in a self-help class as you have never experienced before. The only catch is (oh yes, everything has a catch) THAT YOU HAVE TO HELP YOURSELF. What kind of help is that? If I go to someone for help, firstly I need to know there is something wrong and secondly I will expect them to fix it. Is that too much to ask. Yes, apparently it is. What Chantelle does is hard to explain other than to say she sees problem spots in the natural energy flows of your body. She helped me pinpoint certain links in my chain that were leading to false experiences and emotions. Chantelle's has the ability as a light worker and healer to assist others in their ascension. No matter what your belief, we all want to get somewhere and the quickest way to get there is to sort yourself out. I recently read a nice modern interpretation of "ascension" and "enlightenment" and that is "understanding". The key is to learn to understand yourself.
You won't pack winter woollies if you are going on vacation to the Bahamas. So why then carry around with you years of fears, guilt, negative emotions, when you won't be needing them. I discovered that some of them were relevant long ago, but have subsequently gotten lost in the clutter of bureaucratic paperwork that is my MIND. As I grow older, I no longer need most of them, but as I hate filing with a passion, they have become "misplaced". Chantelle has helped me sort out the papers into files, categorised the items and enabled me to shred most of them. Call it the Dewey Decimal Classification System for Mind, Body and Soul.
My first instance of rejection was my birth. Rejected by my Birthmother. Do I think I was rejected? NO!! I understood from an early age that I had not been rejected by her, but her love for me led her to give me to someone else. Nonetheless, in the creative mastery of the MIND, rejection crept in there somewhere. The next instance was when I was 12 years old and was shipped off to boarding school, a paternal tradition. Dad went there and so did I. Again, did I feel rejected? NO!! I knew that if I wanted a good education I needed to go. Again, the rejection was there, deep in my subconscious.
Shortly before arriving at my new school, I was "tampered with" by an older boy. By the age of 15, the realisation that there was a label for "people like me" and that that label was "Homosexual", resulted in a mini breakdown. All of a sudden I was rejected by society. Suddenly I was one of the minority groups who were prejudiced against. I confided my new realisation in my Mother who told me "What crap, you are not gay." Oh OK, easy as that, if Mom says so, then I am not. If only it were as easy as that. After about 6 months of counselling, I kind of came to terms with my new found label, but not completely.
There were two things that my Mom said to me in my life that have gotten stuck somewhere and have caused years of havoc. The first was "What crap, you are not gay", the second was telling me "it is a small town and we don't want you doing anything to embarrass us". Not really a big deal at the time, but they words stuck. Even though I don't think about the words, they are there, in my subconscious, steering my life around those statements. After all, my fear of rejection has made me terrified of disappointing.
I spent a large portion of my life either being untrue to who I am in the company of others or hiding my real self from others. When you do it for long enough, this new you eventually becomes you. You so naturally become untrue to yourself, that you forget who you are. I was fortunate enough to remember who I am.
As soon as I began to see these things for what they were, I could begin to work through them. As soon as I realised that I was indeed responsible, solely accountable and totally in control of my own life, I could begin to live. I have kept three quarters of my life a secret from my parents because I was scared of disappointing them. As close as we are, I am a virtual stranger to them. I have excluded much of my life from theirs because of my own insecurities. My own fears.
By trying to please everyone around me, I was not pleasing myself at all. Trying to keep everyone around you happy all the time, trying to always be the liked one, trying to always please, trying to always put myself last was what I was in fact doing. My fear of rejection had manifested into a sick and twisted fetishist, sadomasochistic trend. I would do anything for anyone "just to be accepted", all because I could not accept myself. When I eventually realised that I was beginning to create circumstances, events, peoples' thoughts and reactions in my head, I could begin to see through them.
The moment I saw that they were not real, but indeed false, I could see that they were "False Experiences Appearing Real". The moment I realised that only I could reject myself, the fears disappeared into thin air. Again, I love my Mom to bits. She has never and will never reject me. I am no longer rejecting myself. I now am myself, for the first time in a very long time. I have realised that the things I didn't think I needed, I needed the most.
I realised that what was causing the problem was thinking. Fears prevented me from asking questions. Fears prevented the truth from setting me free. Since I have abolished fear from my life, the most amazing transformations have begun to take place. I discovered that my false thoughts and fears were blocking the flows of natural energy. There was information available to me that I did not know about, because I was too scared to ask. So often we just accept things as they are instead of questioning them. It is after all easier that way. NO IT ISN'T!! Nothing is ever as bad as it is in your head.
You won't be stupid if you ask a question, you will be stupid if you don't. The worst thing that can possibly happen exists only in your head. The reality will turn out to be completely different. Since freeing up my blockages, opening my channels, feeing my energy flows, dispelling all fears, I found my Birth-mother completely by accident. I never wanted to know who she is because I didn't want to hurt her by suddenly showing up. This was the weird, sick and twisted reason that my mind had brewed up. The last person whose feelings I was considering were my own.
I was looking for a document in my Dad's office, when I found my birth certificate. No biggy you might think. Well, let me explain. I knew I was adopted. I was told that I was born in Pretoria and handed to my parents when I was 10 days old. THAT IS ALL I KNEW. My parents have my whole life long told me that if I wanted to know more, all I had to do was ask. Easy as that, JUST ASK!!! I couldn't, I had created an elaborate picture suiting my insecurities and fears. Oh no, I was fine, I had a loving family, I had compassion for my birth mother who had to give me away, then why was I scared of finding her. My biggest fear was indeed that she may "reject me again". When I could see that she didn't reject me in the first place, the opportunity of meeting her became a huge reality.
OK, so all I knew was that I was born in Pretoria on 8 April 1973, exactly 37 years ago, and that I was adopted on 18 April, 10 days later by a loving couple from Windhoek. What I had created in my head was as follows. I thought my mother was at school, about 16 years old, was probably either abused or raped and couldn't keep the child. She was forced to "do something about it" and decided out the goodness of her heart to give it up for adoption instead of aborting. I had always imagined that "finding" her would entail lengthy consultations with psychiatrists and social workers, meetings in Pretoria, could take years. A lot of ordeal just to upset her and cause further rejection. Where did all this stuff come from? I really DID make it all up. It was all FALSE.
Realising that opened the possibility for a re-union. On the birth certificate that I found, was the name Peter Hunt. It showed that Peter was born on 8 April 1973 in Windhoek. Finally I could now begin to ask. I was no longer afraid. My parents told me that they had to say I was born in Pretoria because Windhoek was so small. They met my birth-mother after I was adopted by accident. They happened to move in similar circles. After I began to ask, everything has fallen into place at an alarming rate. From having discovered my birth certificate 3 weeks ago, I have spoken with Wendy, my biological mother and will be meeting her in Cape Town next week.
Just because I was afraid to ask a question, 37 years have gone by without me knowing where my biological roots lie. It transpires she wasn't 16, she was 23. She wasn't abused or raped, she was very much in love, but there were tough circumstances back in the early '70's. I wasn't abandoned or rejected. I have had this feeling that this year would be special, a kind of "starting over" year, a re-birth of sorts. Born in 73 and now I'm 37. A mirror. A reflection. A starting over. Who could ever have imagined it would be like this. Obviously I could and I did.
I now have the knowledge and the power to control my life the way I want to. I have gained far more love and respect by being myself than I ever have trying to please. I have absolutely no regrets about anything that has happened in my life. I am after all who I am today because of the way I have lived my life. Being able to sit back, relax and enjoy my life has been the most liberating experience that could ever have happened to me.
No matter what you believe, the truth will set you free. The only person you can disappoint is yourself. Remembering who you are is the most empowering gift you can give yourself. Happy birthday Clinton Ralph Aldridge Lang. Happy Birthday Peter Hunt. I give you the gift of remembrance.
